The Nemtsov Murder Investigation: A Battle Of Leaks

Paul Roderick Gregory
, ContributorI cover domestic and world economics from a free-market perspective.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

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The likely outcome

What is the likely outcome at this point? Clearly, the Chechen 5 will be put on trial. If the Investigative Committee is certain of their cooperation, the court room will be open. If not, it will be closed. No matter. They will be charged with murder motivated by religious hatred. The current battle between Kadyrov and the FSB is over whether the “unidentified contractor” will be named and, if so, will he be kept to a low level in the Kadyrov apparatus.

All sides, Putin included, have a stake in the Charlie Hebdo religious-murder narrative. Putin can pretend to fume that this happened. Kadyrov can continue to supply volunteers to east Ukraine and keep Chechnya under control. The FSB might clip Kadyrov’s wings a bit and surely will increase its thick file of kompromat against him.

The killers' unpaid traffic tickets

There is one little hitch that has been uncovered by inquiring minds in the remaining independent press. The Charlie Hebdo attack took place on January 19. According to the leaks on both sides, the Chechen 5 began to follow Nemtsov in early February in their ZAZ Sens, license plate Е649КЕ 190. According to all accounts, the killers received the auto specifically for purposes of carrying out the murder.

Moskovsky Komsomolets published (already March 10) traffic camera photos of the car, some in the vicinity of Nemtsov’s apartment. The photos date back to September. I quote from the article (for photos of the car, see here):

What is this – a coincidence? If we allow that the suspects already were following the politician (Nemtsov), the fundamental motive disappears. At that time, there had been no shooting in the offices of Charlie Hebdo; there were no remarks by Nemtsov, which would have incited Muslims. That means there was nothing to kill him for – at least according to the logic of Zaur Dadaev. We should also notice the carelessness of the gangsters. They did not once bother to pay parking fees. This infraction plus frequent speeding tickets – on the car added up to 12,000 rubles. Who is going to pay? So far, we do not know.

The West’s knee jerk reaction

Western leaders do not want to recognize what Putin and his regime are capable of. Scholars John Dunlop and Karen Dawisha have chronicled evidence that the FSB, the state internal security service, was behind the 1999 apartment bombings that killed almost 400 Russians and helped bring Putin to power. English justice will probably conclude that the Kremlin ordered the “nuclear poisoning” of defector Alexander Litvinenko in London, and then sheltered his assassin with parliamentary immunity.

The West’s knee-jerk reaction to the Nemtsov murder was to follow the Kremlin’s lead. By calling upon Putin to find and punish the murderers, the leaders of the West, in particular Barack Obama and Angela Merkel, ruled out a political murder ordered from the highest levels of the Kremlin or Chechnya. They bought hook-line-and-sinker the Putin line that the Kremlin would get no benefit from Nemtsov’s killing. This is wrong. Nemtsov was what was left of the opposition. He still held an elected office and apparently assisted the West in devising sanctions. Of course, he alone could not have unseated Putin, but he was the biggest thorn remaining in the Kremlin’s side.